JEDDAH // The review into the stampede at last year’s Haj in which more than 2,000 pilgrims died is still continuing. In a rare comment by a senior Saudi Saudi official, the kingdom’s minister of Haj and Umrah said that the authorities were still studying what happened in the tragedy.
“We already studied that and we are continuing to study this and, God willing, we’ll have many preventive measures and procedures that ... will not repeat what happened last time,” said the minister, Mohammed Bentin on Tuesday after a press conference in Jeddah.
The tragedy happened on September 24, 2015 as pilgrims made their way in searing temperatures to the Jamarat, the place where they ritually stone the devil in the Mina tent city in western Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. It was the worst disaster to ever strike the annual ritual.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister who also chairs the Haj committee, ordered a probe immediately after the disaster on but no findings have been disclosed. According to foreign officials, at least 2,297 pilgrims died but Saudi Arabia put the death toll at 769.
The Haj and the lesser Umrah pilgrimage bring millions of Muslims from around the world to Saudi Arabia every year. Saudi Arabia is keen to increase the number of Umrah visitors from six million a year to 15m as part of the country’s National Transformation Programme (NTP) for bolstering its non-oil economy. Also as part of the programme, Bentin said officials were “ready to evaluate each stage of Haj and each service, and whenever something goes wrong, God willing we’ll at least be able to act before anything serious can happen.”
Bentin said the Haj ministry was keen to use technology to monitor the service offered to pilgrims and to work with the private sector to introduce an “international standard of hospitality” to encourage a more constant flow of pilgrims throughout the year rather than only during the traditional pilgrimage season.
* Agence France-Presse
